In recent decades, teacher and choreographer Tom Bosma taught students from the Royal Ballet School in London a Romanian hora he created, entitled Hora La Aninoasa. The dance was inspired by a painting by Theodor Aman, which the choreographer saw in Romania at the end of the 60s, when he had a scholarship to study in our country.
Hora La Aninoasa, on the Covent Garden stage PHOTO ASH
Tom Bosma has extensive experience in the field. He grew up in the world of folk dances, his father being an acclaimed dancer, so dances were a normality in his family. His passion was so great that he traveled the whole world in search of new rhythms and movements. Between 1973 and 1999 he was a choreographer at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and from 1999 to 2014 he served as deputy director of the institution’s dance department.
From the wall to the stage
The inspiration for Hora La Aninoasa also came to him during the same period. At one point, when he arrived in Romania, he also visited the National Art Museum of Romania in Bucharest, and there he was fascinated by the painting “Hora de la Aninoasa”, painted by the great Theodor Aman in 1890.
“When I saw Theodor Aman’s gorgeous painting, I decided almost instantly to make a choreography inspired by that painting. The ideas started coming to me from the moment I saw the painting. It took me a total of four weeks to create Hora La Aninoasa together with my students in The Hague. I would like to say, by the way, that Romanian music and dances have inspired me enormously during my entire career”says Tom Bosma.
The chorus performed on the London stage has a special story. The dance thought by Tom Bosma is made up of combined choreographies from different parts of Romania. The youngest dancers performed a choreography from western Romania, the middle-aged ones had one from Transylvania, while the most experienced dancers had a choreography inspired by southern Romania. At the end, all the dancers followed very dynamic rhythms together in Romanian folk costumes.
“The management of the Royal Ballet School in London have seen several footage of my work over the years, including this particular Romanian class, and specifically asked me to teach this dance to their students. And I can say that my students in London were very enthusiastic about the Romanian folk dances”revealed Tom Bosma for “Weekend Adevărul”.
Romanian dance can be seen in London
For the renowned choreographer, who has an experience of over 55 years, the most emotional show with Hora La Aninoasa was last summer’s premiere at Covent Garden, one of the most famous theaters in the world, premiered in front of the English audience.
“We started rehearsals in October 2022 with students from the Royal Ballet School in London for Hora La Aninoasa. And the show was held in the summer of 2023, enjoying many appreciations”Tom Bosma also said.
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Students rehearsing Hora La Aninoasa in London photo The Royal Ballet School jpg
Hora La Aninoasa was not his first experience as a choreographer at the prestigious institution in the capital of Great Britain. In 1994, former great ballerina Merle Park, then artistic director of the Royal Ballet School, asked Bosma to create a Romanian choreography for the school. “Then I prepared The Spinners, a show performed at Covent Garden on July 16, 1994. Some of the current teachers at the London school are former dancers from that 1994 show – I think it’s extraordinary.”recalls the acclaimed choreographer.
The Romanians who influenced his career
When he was a child, two highly acclaimed dance teachers and choreographers, Sever Tița and artist emeritus Theodor Vasilescu, came to Holland to teach Romanian folk dances. “The two Romanian teachers were very important to me during my adolescence. They were always helpful, communicative, involved, they explained the music, the dances, the steps, in short two exceptional teachers”recalls Tom Bosma.
And his connection with Romania continued: in 1968, when he was 18 years old, the Dutch Ministry of Culture granted him a three-month scholarship in Romania to study folk dances. His Romanian teachers worked at the Central House of Popular Creation in Bucharest and helped him a lot, including accommodation with a lovely family in the capital.
“Every day I had private lessons with my teachers, and in the evening they sent me to participate in the rehearsals held by the Youth Ensemble, the Ballade Ensemble and the Doina Ensemble. The teachers sent me all over the country, either to another good teacher, or to an ensemble, or to a festival. In this way, I had the chance to study in Caransebeș, Craiova, Goicea Mare, Alexandria, Sibiu, Cluj, Suceava, Baia Mare, Oaș and Brașov, where I studied with the Poienita Folk Ensemble. And in those three months, although it seems little, I managed to learn 70 folk dances from different regions of Romania”emphasizes Tom Bosma.
The belt, danced by a Dutchman with Romanians
The Dutch choreographer also revealed what is the most special memory related to Romania. In 1968, when he had a scholarship in our country, one of his teachers suggested that he go to the prestigious Brâul festival in Alexandria.
“When I arrived at the festival site in my little red car with Dutch license plates, several boys between the ages of 10 and 12 came up and asked me what I was doing there. I told them I was interested in their dance. They asked me if I could belt dance and I said yes, showing them a few steps as well. They were so excited to see a foreigner dancing the belt that they taught me many steps which I then taught them in Holland. What the little ones taught me then was useful to me when I did the choreography for Hora La Aninoasa”says the Dutch choreographer.
It should also be said that throughout his career spanning more than five decades so far, Tom Bosma has worked as a guest teacher and choreographer for numerous ballet schools around the globe, such as the National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam, the John Cranko School ( Germany), Hamburg Ballet School (Germany), Tokyo Ballet School (Japan), Chabukiani Tbilisi Ballet School (Georgia) and Escuela Nacional de Ballet Fernando Alonso (Cuba), Icelandic Ballet School Reykjavik (Iceland), Institut del Teatre Barcelona (Spain) , Conservatorio Superior “Maria de Avila” Madrid (Spain), Choreography High School Bucharest, Houston Ballet Academy (USA).
That’s how it is in Muscel
Related to the geographical origin of the hora in Theodor Aman’s painting, there were question marks regarding the exact place, considering the fact that there are five municipalities with the name Aninoasa in the counties of Argeș, Gorj, Hunedoara, Dâmbovița and Prahova. “According to the costumes that appear in Theodor Aman’s painting, it is possible that the chorus is from Aninoasa commune in Argeș county”Elena Iagăr, former manager of the Argeș County Center for Culture and Arts, told “Weekend Adevărul”.
“Hora is probably from Aninoasa de Muscel, judging by some fairly general ethnographic criteria. It cannot be precisely stated, especially since everything related to ethnography needs details and minute details. But the general atmosphere is that of a peasant hora, with rhythm and swirling, in the weft of a village bar, where you drink on the porch, where a group of children are playing, with people dressed in festive clothes, sewn with ornaments, specifically festive . As you well know, licenses appear in art, and for the important viewer it is a certain fragment of life, emotion, something that goes beyond the accuracy of the detail”scored for “Weekend Adevărul” Alina Ioana Ciobănel, ethnographer at the Institute of Ethnography and Folklore “Constantin Brăiloiu” of the Romanian Academy.
